Editorial

American Politics Begins To Polarize

The political scene in America has become more raucous, more contentious – culminating in an unprecedented interruption of the President’s speech, with a congressman calling him a liar. Growing numbers of people are buying guns and tuning to racist, pro-violence talk shows. There is a resurgence of violent, pro-fascist groups across the country.

Commentators have called for a return to “civility” as if the nation is throwing a temper tantrum. The problem is more complex than calming a naughty child.

We are seeing the beginnings of political polarization. Polarization means the sharp division of a population or group into opposing factions. There has always been struggle and turmoil, but there has not been polarization in America since the Civil War. Polarization occurs when the social and economic “middle” that holds the antagonistic poles in society apart is destroyed, its elements going to one or the other pole. The so-called “silent majority” – the moderate “middle America” – is disintegrating, becoming even more silent and politically impotent.

Without the middle, the opposing forces or social poles are thrown against each other. This is a process where the rulers and the ruled begin to separate and confront one another over who will have the power to shape society. This political polarization is inevitable since politics expresses economics. Economic polarization has developed since the introduction of robotics. Robotics means production without labor – wage-less production. As wage-less production expanded, so did the inability of the people to purchase the growing mountain of products. Stage-by-stage and sector-by-sector, the people began to awaken to the reality of economic polarization. Today, the richest 20 percent of the population own 85 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 40 percent own two tenths of one percent.

As the masses begin to stir, they move based on what they perceive, rather than based on an understanding of what is actually happening. Many revolutionaries, having thrown aside theory, move with the masses from the standpoint of perception. By doing so, they become a plaything in the hands of the most dangerous, fascistic elements in the country.

Revolutionaries must proceed from conceptual knowledge, a grasp of the underlying process rather than simply the moment. Why is this true? There are no objective guidelines to lead the movement from capitalism, which is based on private property, to a co-operative society based on public property. In a previous era, the capitalist revolution against the feudal regimes maintained the system of private property. Profit, the bottom line, was an accurate guideline for keeping the capitalists on course. No such guidelines exist for the coming revolution, since it will be against private property. Simply reacting to what one sees condemns the movement to the unending “fighting back” within the system.

As the economic crisis deepens, a dangerous tendency based on perceptual knowledge is emerging. That is the tendency to attack Obama, the individual, since he is president of the country and its economy is falling apart. But politics serves the economy, not the other way around. Obama is not the problem. Any criticism of a politician today must proceed from an evaluation of the emerging social and political features of a consolidated fascist base. Fascism, the corporate state, the complete merging of the government and corporate power, began to consolidate under the Roosevelt administration. Its progression is an objective reflection of what is happening in the economy, and not the result of some president’s whim. As the masses begin to stir, the political features of fascism emerge. The danger of major wars increases. The civil rights of the people will be attacked. The most violent and repressive features of our history will come forth again. 

There is no way to go back to “the good old days.” The only way forward is to make public property out of the giant corporations, which are too critical to society to remain in private hands. To accomplish this requires a theoretical understanding of the transition from private to public property and the social forces at play. It requires planning. In a word, the future depends on our ability to move rapidly from a perceptual to a conceptual grasp of the struggle.

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This article originated in the People's Tribune
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